oh but no
by Suk-fong
Summary: This has to end-die. Murder those butterflies.


disclaimer: disclaimed.  
notes: I figured I could do this thing too. Tumblr: seevikifangirl  
dedicated: garaii  
ship: Maya/Lucas Lucas/Riley Maya/Josh  
title: oh but no  
summary: It needs to end-die. Murder some butterflies

* * *

It is very easy to fall in love. But it is very hard to fall out of love.

See she loves Riley. Honest to god, she loves Riley. Riley is her best friend, her sister, her soul mate and if she swung that way maybe the love of her life.

And if that was possible than she knows how to write this story, she knows how it will end because Riley loves her too. She loves her more and it would be so easy.

Only it's not that story.

No it's not; it's the story of this blonde boy from Texas who doesn't make her stomach drop or her palms clammy like Josh does.

See Josh, Josh is easy. It's full out, tits out ass out pedal to the medal easy. He's too old, she's too young, there's excuses and reasons and in five years or so, they'll be empty words when the bedframe knocks against the wall.

Josh is simple.

Farkle is simple, and they both know they've got about six years of friendship that crossing would just make it all weird, but it's important to him, so she goes along with it.

But him? Yeah it's not simple. It's not love, it can't be love because Riley loves him and in the end Riley is more important.

It's not a self-esteem issue, it's the honest to god truth. Riley is more important than her.

And Riley loves Lucas.

And so Lucas is off limits-she'd drinking nail polish remover before she touched him and she will protect the flower, the cowboy, the asshat who doesn't lose his temper with every stupid nickname from steam rollers like Missy or people like her.

Because she's the worse.

She's in love with her best friend's boyfriend.

Because that's what this is-or god she hopes not but she doesn't know what to call this-it feels like sunrise in her stomach and warm chocolate chip cookies down her throat. It feels safe around him, like everything is maybe not brighter, but clearer, like she thinks straight when he's around-or maybe she thinks things through.

Whatever it is, she knows he's to blame but only about sixty-seven percent because she could have done something.

She could have found him ugly, stupid, annoying. Hell boring. She could have figured he was too bland, captain of the baseball team, student body president, all around nice guy.

That's boring.

Not like Josh. Josh who is older, who shuts her down, who reminds her three years is three years especially when they're on opposite sides of eighteen.

Josh who is like a tequila shot, like electricity down her spine and jolts her brain. Josh is exciting because he's so out of reach but so easy to grasp.

There's no slow burn, no feeling of climbing up a mountain, jumping out of the plane and this feeling of vertigo, of being flipped inside out and back ass wards and then something like clarity that you weren't outside in and you were forwards. You were all mixed up, like a Rubix's cube twisted beyond belief before someone with ease and patience just untwisted you-or maybe just started and let you figure the rest out by yourself.

No Josh is simple, because it's so easy to predict. It's always been between them and they both know it will end in flames and awkwardness. Life isn't a sitcom, they've built what Josh and Maya could be for so long that when they will be, it will never live up to expectations.

Josh is simple, and she knows how the story goes. She and Josh implode and Lucas and Riley move to happily ever after with two point five kids and a ranch in Texas. That's the way it goes and that's how it will go goddamnit.

She just needs to fall out of love with him.

And see that's the hard part because she doesn't know how to fall out of love because she didn't know how she fell in love. She doesn't honest to god.

She doesn't know how it happened. It just did and that's the worse because she needs a reason. She needs a catalyst, something she can think about as horrible and wrong and just destroy it and villainies it because it is wrong and bad and just wrong.

But she can't find one. She can't find the one point that she started this jump of an air plane, this clarity, this way she stopped feeling like a screw up. Or maybe he didn't make her feel like she was a screw up. Maybe he made her feel like it was okay that she was messed up and that he knew she'd figure herself out.

She just knows that it's the Homecoming Court nominations and Riley is going on and on about her dress because she's been nominated as a potential Queen and Lucas (of course) is a potential King and wouldn't it be just great if they won because it would be a sign.

And it is a sign because her stomach felt like its three floors down at the way he smiles at Riley almost to his eyes and it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. It feels like he's faking and she doesn't know why because he can't be faking.

Not with Riley, he can't fake with her.

She will break him if he's playing with her-even though he isn't the type to play with girls. Lucas and Riley have broken up and gotten back together at least six times since eighth grade and senior year and each time Riley tells her on the window seat, 'We're in love. '

And Riley believes it, whole heartedly because love to her is something you find in high school-hell middle school.

She doesn't know if Lucas believes it, or if he's just playing along because that's what expected from him. He does that a lot, she knows. He's got a look sometimes when he's suffering a fool that he just wants to walk away or hit him or something. But that would ruin his image, he's the nice guy.

He's a nice guy and Riley is a nice girl and they will be nice together.

They have to be.

Because Riley is important, and she loves Riley and Riley loves Lucas.

It's that simple.


End file.
